Pangasinan bags nat’l tourism awards
LINGAYEN – The efforts of the provincial government and the private sector to develop and promote tourism as an industry continue to gain national recognition.
Pangasinan was recently cited by the annual Pearl Awards of the Department of Tourism and the Association of Tourism Officers’ in the Philippines (ATOP) for ‘best tourism practices’, namely: 1st runner-up in Best Provincial Tourism Month Celebration, and 2nd runner-up in Best Provincial Tourism Event/Festival – Pista’y Dayat, Pangasinan’s mother of all local festivals.
These recent feats were in the tourism front were among the accomplishments enumerated by Gov. Amado ‘Pogi’ I. Espino, III in his First 100 Days report.
The governor credited the awards and citations to his predecessor’s action program that earnestly sought to reawaken Pangasinenses’ consciousness towards the province’s history and culture. Former Governor (and now 5th District Representative) Amado T. Espino, Jr. launched a number of initiatives to achieve that objective.
Two such initiatives were the creation of the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission and recently the establishment of the Center for Pangasinan Studies (CPS) which was jointly initiated by the provincial government and the University of the Philippines (UP).
A consortium of five Higher Education Institutions based in the province joined the CPS for the wide-ranging research, preservation and enrichment of the province’s cultural heritage and for the promotion of tourism to maximize more economic opportunities for Pangasinenses.
Espino announced that CPS will soon launch cultural mapping activities in three pilot municipalities which will be funded and guided by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Meanwhile, the Provincial Tourism and Cultural Affairs Office sponsored the 1st Pangasinan Tourism Youth Conference and hosted the 3rd Regional Tourism Convention in partnership with Alaminos City government.
The tourism and industry immersion tours now being offered in Pangasinan have already resulted in the creation of various tour packages, i.e., Lingayen Heritage Tour, Pangasinan Aquaculture and Culinary Tour, Bolinao Escapade Tour and Hundred Islands Tour.
To further support the tourism promotions master plan, Espino launched the weekly coastal clean-up drive that enjoins Capitol employees to clean designated areas on the Lingayen Beach and other coastal areas in Pangasinan every Friday afternoon. (With report from PIO)
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